Sense perception

A Way of Knowing

• The senses: Hearing / Touch / Sight / Taste / Smell our “windows on the world”

They give us a foundation of immediate knowledge around us.

Advantages of Sense Perception as a way of knowing• 1) --knowledge is grounded in observable "facts"

and is thus termed objective • 2) --claims of knowledge may be tested and

criticized by others relatively easily • 3) --it is basic to the scientific method, which has

proven to be a valuable process in establishing a great deal of our knowledge in the modern world

• 4) --it is a way of knowing that often can be tested repeatedly

Empiricism• empirical data is information that is derived from

the trials and errors of experience.

• Experience is of primary importance in giving us knowledge of the world.

• Whatever we learn, according to empiricists, we learn through perception.

• Knowledge without experience, with the possible exception of trivial semantic and logical truths, is impossible.

John Locke(1632-1704)

• Classical empiricism: rejection of innate, in-born knowledge or concepts.

• Mind being a tabula rasa, a “blank slate”, when we enter the world. At birth we know nothing; it is only subsequently that the mind is furnished with information by experience.

• Can we trust the evidence of our senses to provide us with truth?

• What is perception influenced by?

• What does it depend on?

Can you read this?

• Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in what oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is that the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe.

Delusions

Perception also depends on our beliefs and expectations:

- What we expect to perceive- Missing the unexpected- What other people see or say they see- See what we want to see

The case of Amadou Diallo

• In 1999, Amadou Diallo -- a black man from West Africa -- was killed by four police officers in the vestibule of his building. Diallo was unarmed, but the officers claimed that they had mistaken the wallet he held in his hand for a gun. (Diallo may have pulled the wallet out of his back pocket because he wanted to show identification, or because he mistook the plainclothes officers for muggers.) The officers shot Diallo 41 times.

So…

• Perception is, not passive reception. active inquiry

• “All seeing is seeing-as, and we must learn how to do this.” (Abel, Man is the measure)

• To see what is the case requires context, inference, concepts, experience, interpretation.

• http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/wacky/the-right-brain-vs-left-brain/story-e6frev20-1111114577583

• http://www.perthnow.com.au/fun-games/left-brain-vs-right-brain/story-e6frg46u-1111114517613

There is no “innocent eye”...

Nietzsche called this “the fallacy of the immaculate perception”:

• What we perceive is usually what we expect, or want, or believe, or are used to.•To perceive is to solve a problem